European Migration Policies and the Right of Asylum

The European Union is confronted with a deep migration crisis, at a time when the EU has changed from being a source of stability and security into becoming a generator of political instability and economic chaos. This chapter outlines the main parameters of Europe's immigration issue and the right of asylum. It presents the European migration policies of the last decade and traces the reasons behind its complete or near failure. The European Union takes into account how to rid itself of migrants through certain measures of tightening the law on asylum, and closing the borders. The result is that those states which had most fought against borders and walls and were committed to them being permanently eliminated, are now rushing to raise them again. Meanwhile, the security threat that has increased across the whole Union due to the mismanagement of migration. The European Union has spent years developing the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The aim of CEAS is to ensure the rights of asylum seekers by law. The system establishes minimum standards and procedures for processing and assessing claims for asylum and for the treatment of asylum seekers and those granted refugee status. Nevertheless, a large number of EU member states have yet to correctly implement these standards. Instead there is a collage of 28 different asylum systems producing uneven results? Finally, this chapter examines the EU asylum system itself. The chapter analyses how national asylum systems interact under the law of the EU, applying the criteria of the distribution of state responsibility to investigate asylum applications. This chapter addresses two key concepts in the development of European asylum law in particular: the concept of solidarity and the concept of trust, the application of which has been demonstrably weak in the European Union asylum system.